Exemplary embodiments pertain to the art of maintenance inspections to mechanical systems and more specifically to planning engine borescope inspections based on Foreign Object Detection (“FOD”) probability estimations.
Engine borescope inspections may be time-consuming and therefore costly. These inspections may be planned in advance to minimize disruption to operational schedules. Borescope inspection intervals may be in the range from every tens of Engine Flight Hours (“EFH”) to thousands of EFH. Longer inspection intervals provide more operational efficiency and maintenance cost reduction with the trade-off of increased risk due to FOD events. On the other hand inspection intervals may need to shorten in response to detecting FOD events.
In some cases technical improvements in FOD detection may result in an increase in borescope inspections because FOD detection may lead to ad-hoc inspections in addition to scheduled inspections. If FOD detection occurs too often due to false alarms there is an operational risk of a decrease in operational efficiency and an increase in maintenance costs.